Everything

One of my favorite blog friends posted this video on her blog this week along with a story of how God has changed her life. It is a beautiful and encouraging, and honest story of her journey with God. (You can read it here)

I watched the video this morning. After the week that I had, after the way that I found my way back into the arms of God, for the hundredth time in my walk with Him, I was rejoicing at how He always wins!

My journey has not been easy. I did not know Jesus until I was in my twenties. My childhood was happy, but not perfect. I experienced things that made me question the reality of a loving God. I knew children who had been abused as my family cared for them in foster care. I knew the effects of alcohol and the chaos that the disease of alcoholism will bring into one's life. I knew of drugs and the consequences of trying to find love in all the wrong places. I was abused by a boyfriend. My brother committed suicide. My parents divorced. My concept of God was that He could not possibly be there, and if He was, He certainly did not care about me. By the time I was 18, I was a self proclaimed atheist.

But then I met Him and my life changed. I felt the love and security of what it is to have Him in my life. I knew, for the first time, what it is like to have someone love me, no matter what I had done, no matter what I had witnessed, and no matter what questions that I had for Him. He was patient. He taught me about Him. He loved me. He stood by - and still does - watching me, protecting me, and fighting my battles when I ask Him to step in. My life sometimes still looks like the young girl in this video. I know many others who can say the same thing. But what really counts, what really matters, is the way He steps in and makes all things right. He really is everything.